The United States is a country that has been built on the backs of everyday people fighting for their beliefs and ideals – during the American Revolution, during the Civil War, during the Civil Rights movement, and during countless other moments in our history. The struggle for national redemption of our values in the light of our shortcomings is ongoing. If we have a chance of reaching “The Promised Land,” we must build a new generation of activists who are willing to tackle issues of race, religion and free speech head on. That is where Cultural Leadership comes into the picture.

Since 2004, Cultural Leadership in St. Louis has been teaching high school juniors and seniors from across the metropolitan area how to be “troublemakers of the best kind” – how to speak out against racism, anti-Semitism and prejudice under all of its guises. This year, I was lucky to be a member of the sixth class of Cultural Leadership. There are 31 of us – 17 African-Americans, nine Jews, one African-American Jew, and three of us who belong to none of these groups. The program was originally designed for only African-American and Jewish students, but was recently opened up to all in the hopes of furthering the mission of cross-cultural understanding.

After an intense application and interview process, Class Six met for our first retreat in January 2010. We talked about stereotypes, community organizing and the concept of racial differences in America. We spent our following meetings, twice a month, discussing these issues along with the Jewish holidays, structures of power and the history of social justice in America. We also had a “school swap” after discussing public education inequalities, whereby every student who attends a county school visited a city school for a day and vice versa. We then met with principals, superintendants and school board presidents to discuss what we learned during our “swap.”

On June 9th, we left St. Louis early in the morning to embark on a “transformational journey” to see the things we had learned about with our own eyes. Our 22-day journey took us across the country with stops in New York City; Baltimore; Washington D.C.; Atlanta; Birmingham, Montgomery and Selma, Ala.; Jackson, Miss.; Little Rock, and Memphis. We met with more than 80 community leaders including Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anti-Defamation League National Director Abraham Foxman and Reverend Al Sharpton – each of whom had participated in the Civil Rights movement and are still fighting for social justice and change. Together we examined our country’s past — with a strong focus on the Civil Rights movement and the Holocaust — and discussed what is needed to truly establish “equal justice under law.”

The photo essay that follows chronicles our summer journey. I took pictures almost every day; by the end of our trip, I had 480 pictures. I shot in black-and-white partly because my photo teacher always says that a great black-and-white image has “black, white and a variety of grays.” Just like our world, a black-and-white image needs diversity to be beautiful. It is my hope that each picture speaks to the indomitable spirit and zest of my classmates, and that they display the change makers we have all become.

For more information on Cultural Leadership, or to apply, visit www.culturalleadership.org. You can find more of these pictures online at www.stljewishlight.com.

Zoe Krause, 16, is a junior at Ladue Horton Watkins High School.